


The Semiotics of Concealment

by Annakovsky



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-30
Updated: 2006-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:06:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between Branch Closing and The Merger. Jim takes the job in Scranton mostly as a favor to Jan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Semiotics of Concealment

Jim takes the job in Scranton mostly as a favor to Jan. It feels like moving backwards -- at least in Stamford he can pretend like he's a different person, that moving to a different place and getting a minor promotion was like an entire personality overhaul.

The week before he moved away, he felt guilty enough about leaving town that he went to church with his mom. Afterwards, at the coffee hour, he made small talk with the associate pastor about how he was moving, how he didn't know anyone in Stamford at all.

"Really?" Pastor Dave said. "Huh. You could really reinvent yourself, starting completely over like that."

Jim hadn't exactly thought about it in those terms -- he'd been thinking about it more as going away from Scranton, not as going toward anywhere in particular. On the drive up, half his worldly positions in garbage bags in the backseat -- he still packs like he's in college, going home for summer break -- he toyed with the idea of telling everyone to call him James, or maybe Jay, making a clean break with the past. But it ended up seeming a little too Gatsby, and then it didn't matter anyway, thanks to Andy and Big Tuna.

He's changed in Stamford, he really has. He's not the same guy he was back then, trapped and stagnating in a job he hated, putting all his energy into tormenting Dwight, pathetically yearning after a girl he had no shot with. He wears nicer suits now to go with his promotion; he's on a track towards middle management, so someday he too can be Michael Scott. See, kids? Dreams really can come true.

It's a lot easier to have fond nostalgia for Scranton when you don't think you'll ever be going back, for those meetings in the conference room, for super-gluing all Dwight's office supplies down to his desk, the screwed up dysfunctional family of it, how badly Michael needed them all. Josh doesn't need anybody; their office is like a job, not like a twisted family reunion where your uncles get drunk and start an arm wrestling contest and your grandma criticizes what your aunt's wearing and somebody ends up in tears. It's kind of weirdly comforting to remember it from a distance, but going back, geez. On top of everything else, he actually told Michael, on camera, that he had transferred because of Pam. He doesn't know what's wrong with him -- by now, knowing Michael, the whole office must have heard, so when he gets back everyone, including the camera, will be scrutinizing them, and he doesn't know why he's apparently so intent on making himself look so pathetic. On *being* so pathetic, a guy who can't tell a girl how he feels until the last possible minute, after he has an exit plan set up, who moves out of town because of her, who spends the entire summer moping in a half-furnished apartment, listening to Bright Eyes in the dark in a town where he has no friends.

Going back wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so humiliating; every day he's grateful that at least the cameras didn't catch him telling Pam how he felt, so he has that one scrap of dignity left. But he's incredibly determined not to embarrass himself again; he and Pam are fine, but he's totally over her, and he's not going to leave himself open to people gossiping about them, to Michael taking him to Hooters, nothing. They'll be completely professional, and he's got a long list in his head of things he won't do. No plotting with her to put laxatives in Dwight's coffee, no reading other people's messages as an excuse to hang around her desk, no IMing about anything other than business, no glancing over at her when Michael's being ridiculous. The cameras won't make him look like an idiot again, because he's not going to be an idiot.

The thing is, it's just a lot easier to not be an idiot in Stamford. But going back to Scranton -- he can't let himself be that guy again, and that means he needs armor, some kind of guarantee he won't fall back into being the exact same person he was, back into looking like the biggest loser in the office. Even with the promotion, he'll be at the same place, with the same people, eating the same lunch in the same break room, making the same sales calls, acting all the same ways he always did. The only difference he can be sure of is the Stamford people that come along with him, and when Karen tells him she's going to take the transfer, he's surprised, but glad. It'll be easier with her there, show the Scranton people he doesn't need them. He has friends. He wasn't some big loser all lonely in Connecticut -- he gets along fine without them.

He asks Karen if she wants to get a drink after work, and she does, and after two beers she starts casually putting her hand on his arm, and oh. He hadn't thought about her like that particularly before, and if he weren't about to go back to Scranton in two weeks he wouldn't think much about it now either, but, well. He just wants to prove that he's not stuck in how things used to be, wants to have something that'll keep him moving forward. Wants to make it really clear that he's changed, that he's not hung up on anybody. So he walks her out to her car and kisses her up against it in the parking lot, a little rough, sliding his knee in between hers. She's a good kisser, though maybe a little too eager, and when he finally pulls back so he can see her face, she just looks really, really happy. He's an ass, but this isn't news.

On Friday they go to the movies, and she holds his hand in the dark, fingers twined together. She rubs her thumb against his wrist, back and forth, which is nice, even though it distracts from the movie a little bit. When he takes her home, she invites him in, and when they're making out on the couch, his hand under her shirt, her kissing his neck, he says, soft, "So, you my girlfriend?"

Karen laughs a little, and shifts. Her hair brushes his face. "Yeah," she says, after a second, almost shy, and she sounds like she's smiling. "Okay." So that settles that. Maybe he'll survive this thing after all.

The day before the Stamford branch officially closes, Jan comes into town to talk to Josh about logistics. She comes out of his office looking pinched just as Jim's getting his stuff together to go home, and when he catches her eye she manages a tight-lipped smile.

"Hey," Jim says. "How's it going?"

She shakes her head a little, rubs at her temple like she's getting a headache. "Don't ask."

"You want to get a drink or something?" He thinks about going somewhere kind of fancy, maybe, dressed in his suit, Jan looking collected and together and adult. Drinking something other than beer, something mature -- scotch, or something, neat. Which actually sounds kind of gross, but maybe now Jim's the kind of person who would drink scotch. Who would buy a house, fall in love with someone appropriate and attainable, have a successful career, get it together.

Jan looks at him and he remembers his carefully mussed hipster hair, his messenger bag, and he thinks _maybe not_ even before she says, "I don't know if that's a good idea."

He was pretty lonely when he first got to Stamford, and it seems like Jan's pretty lonely all the time, so maybe what happened isn't that surprising. That first week after he moved, she was in town checking up on how he was settling in and took him out for drinks. They weren't drunk, exactly, but after three drinks he was having a really excellent time, and when his knee accidentally brushed hers under the table she didn't move away. Later, she laughed a little that he had posters on the walls of his apartment, and when he asked why she said it looked like a dorm room. "Not in a bad way," she said, at the look on his face, and kissed him, undid the knot of his tie. He felt young and clumsy and out of his league.

It just happened twice, and there were no hard feelings, but still, yeah, maybe not a good idea. One more thing he can't do anymore, get a drink with his boss, in a long list of things he's managed to ruin for himself.

Once in college, after his girlfriend dumped him and he was really depressed, he made an appointment with the free college therapist and didn't tell anyone. The therapist asked him if it was possible that he sabotaged relationships because he's afraid, which a) was a load of crap, and b) didn't cheer him up at all, which was the whole reason he had gone in the first place. So that was the only session they had, and Jim still doesn't believe that diagnosis, but he does think about it sometimes. Which bugs him as much as anything.

He smiles at Jan and shrugs, no hard feelings, and goes home to finish packing. He's moving back in with Mark -- Mark had gotten another roommate after Jim had left, but it hadn't worked out. "Dude," Mark had said. "Smoking up once in awhile is fine and all, but if I had found one more bong, like, in the refrigerator, I was going to rearrange somebody's face." Jim laughed, and there was a little pause. "Hey," Mark said. "I'm glad you're coming back."

Lots of Jim's stuff had never quite made it up to Stamford in the first place, so moving back isn't that big of a deal. He puts it all back in the garbage bags, turns his key in to his landlord, and gets back in the car to reverse his route, like some kind of farcical boomerang of a human being. The drive is okay for the first hour, when he can pretend he's just on a road trip to nowhere in particular, but once he sees the "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign his stomach starts to get all knotted up, and it just gets worse as he gets closer, I-80, I-380 N to Scranton. Then the road signs conveniently tick down the miles left to go until he's there, as though the highway commissioner hates him personally, and then he's driving through Dunmore and into the city, same old streets, same old grocery store, the laundromat, his high school.

At the house, his old room is exactly the same, except now it reeks of pot and gives Jim a headache. Same old bed with no headboard, same old stereo, same old school papers stashed in the back of the closet. He unpacks half-heartedly, and when Karen calls and wants to come over and help, he says she can.

She's okay, Karen. She's cute, and funny, and she doesn't put up with bullshit. If he were a decent human being, he'd be really into her. He unpacks all his kitchen stuff, and she puts his books back on the shelves in the living room, and makes fun of his literary choices ("Dave Eggers, Jim? Seriously?"), and then she kisses him in the kitchen, the handle of the refrigerator digging into his back, and he doesn't feel anything at all. He wonders how long he has to kiss her before he can go watch a Simpsons rerun without being rude.

After Karen leaves, he goes to put sheets on the bed so he can sleep, but as he lifts the mattress he hears paper rustling. It's porn -- very classy, Halpert -- hidden there from what must be a really long time ago. He bought it in college, at least, if not earlier. He flips through the pages, finds some of his old favorites, plastic perfect airbrushed women, glossy pages of them, all sex, vacant expressions. He digs around in the bottom of the last box to find some lotion, then sits on his bed and jerks off efficiently to a blond on page 34. He doesn't think about anything but the model, but for some reason he's getting angrier and angrier looking at her stupid flawless ugly face, her goddamn sick perfect boobs. He's pulling hard at his cock until he finally comes and thinks maybe he can sleep now. But he doesn't, not for a long time, and he lies awake thinking about how tomorrow he'll be back at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton, and he hasn't changed enough, not by a long shot.

In the morning he puts on his ugliest tie and tries driving a different way to work than usual, but it takes longer and he gets stuck behind a freight train. The sun's just barely come up, and there's a little bit of mist, and the train's whistle echoes, loud and empty. He taps the steering wheel and waits for it to go by.

**  
END


End file.
